27 April 2020

27 April 2020 - Oingo Boingo - Stay

There was a time when there was a band named Oingo Boingo, fronted by a man named Danny Elfman.  They had a fair amount of success with the theme from the movie Weird Science and an appearance in the movie Back to School, the latter of which Scott wrote about several years ago.

Elfman would go on to be a big time movie score guy and be embarrassed by Oingo Boingo.  He shouldn't have been.  They were amazing.

This is not a fun and happy song.  It's a love song.  Specifically, it is a song in which the protagonist is begging his significant other to stick around and work through their problems, rather than running away.  Comparing their relationship to many things that it isn't, it's a much deeper song than you would have expected from Oingo Boingo at the time - and remains one of my favorites.



After the music industry changed and left the sound of Oingo Boingo behind, they struggled to reinvent themselves, but ultimately threw in the towel in 1995 with a huge farewell show.  Here is the band, performing this song for the last time.



The song was not a huge hit for the band in the States, but, oddly, it was in Brazil, where it was used in a telenovela named Top Model.   That's not a joke. 


Hence, there were several Brazilian bands who have covered this song - and you can see them over on Totally Covered right now!

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